Some people might not consider architecture to be art at all, or at least not “fine” art. Just as a basket or a vase or a quilt has a use and is often considered to be craft, doesn’t the use of a building and all the air conditioning and sewage pipes and stuff make it something “else” — even if art is involved somehow?
As a critic I have said that I don’t think that there should be an absolute distinction between fine and, let’s say, “applied” art. I have, for example, reviewed a fashion designer and a saddle maker as artists recently.
The Greeks and many traditional societies had no conception of fine art or “art for art’s sake.” If something was made well, then it often had as an accidental gift — a shining of beauty. Let’s be fair: Don’t most of us consider Etruscan vases real art?
The great philosopher Hegel ranked the arts as types in quality and ranked architecture last — basing his judgment on Egypt and the great pyramids. He argued that architecture had too much mass in it, too much of matter. Hegel, though an Idealist, was not against matter, he just thought it wasn’t as expressive as other forms of art. I think he would have considered Gehry’s famous Bilbao Art Museum one of those exceptions. I look at it in another way. Hegel believed logically in the “coincidence of opposites” and therefore, when architecture is in fact “art” — which I agree is often rare — then the tying of all that ponderous matter with exquisite form could make it the greatest art, one could argue.
Hegel thought poetry and Schopenhauer thought music was the greatest art for their lack of matter. But who’d want only poetry and music but no paintings or dance?
I’m not into ranking the arts. I go with the sun analogy here: All the arts, like rays of light, all come from the Absolute or Nature or God.
I will rank this, though. All building is not “architecture,” and maybe even all architecture is not really art. But some is; the Pyramids, The Parthenon and the Pantheon, Notre Dame and the great Gothic cathedrals and the great Renaissance buildings are art. A critic asked the great contemporary sculptor Serra — you know, the one with the huge curving steel shapes— if he wouldn’t like to try his hand at architecture since many of his forms are so “architectural.” He humbly said something like “No thanks, it’s hard enough to get these shapes to work without having to work with electrical wires and plumbing pipes and things like that!” Some of you may or may not know that I am, in addition to my work as a critic and a fine artist, a Registered Architect who trained under two direct students of Frank Lloyd Wright — Architects Dennis Blair and Albert Sincavage. I think I can say then with some authority that Serra is correct: It is much harder to do architecture as art than many other arts.
Now before any artists out there get mad at me, let me say that I don’t mean doing great architecture as an art is any more difficult — in theory — than any other art. But in practice, it is nearly impossible. Ask any architect.
First one needs a client who will let the architect see it all through with his vision. Almost all clients, especially residential ones, even the best of them, finally want to add something themselves — not a great idea which many clients have and you approve of, but one snuck in with the builder one day without your approval! “We thought that this would work. We hope you like it!” Just imagine painting a painting, say a portrait for a client, and one day you come in and an eye has been painted over or a bush is added somewhere? Even Warhol and Basquiat in their experiments painting dialectically — back and forth — didn’t do so well.
I have created so many works of art in the past 10 years, most of it in the last five that some professors/critics has suggested that my work might be one of the most prolific in history. I mention this not to brag, but to suggest that it was the almost unbelievable frustration of trying to do architecture as art that drove me, almost in desperation, for a creative outlet that did not require millions of dollars and civil engineers to create. When I started — and experienced that freedom — I couldn’t stop!
Other local architects have no doubt done better than me at actually getting their buildings built pretty perfectly. I would like to point out architects Peter Bohlin of BCJ, Joseph Biondo and Hemmler + Camayd Architects as architects that have succeeded, and some of the larger firms in the areas regularly do really superb work.
I once asked the great father of underground architecture Malcolm Wells — another teacher of mine — how Frank Lloyd Wright accomplished so many great “built” buildings. He suggested in all seriousness that “He was meaner than us!,” and in all seriousness I think he was correct!
To do great architecture one needs almost total control, at least over final decisions. I know that might sound too hierarchical to some Postmodernists out there, but unfortunately it’s true.
I leave you with three of the greatest works of Architecture as Art of the 20th century: Frank Lloyd Wrights “Fallingwater” outside of Pittsburgh, voted the greatest house of the last century by architects; Le Corbusier’s “Chapel at Ronchamp” in France; and Mies Van der Rohe’s “Farnsworth House” in Illinois.
In all three cases the clients let the architects do what they wanted — within the limits of their programs. And still … Mr. Kaufmann and Wright almost came to blows, at least verbal ones, and Mrs. Farnsworth, as I remember it, sued the great Mies for designing her a house that couldn’t be lived in. The monks of Ronchamp agreed in advance not to interfere with the great Corbu, and being monks they stuck to their word. The Opera House in Sydney, Australia is another whole story — after decades building it, they fired the great Utzon and never got the inside to match the outside! Now the trustees are going back and trying to follow his earlier ideas.
Take the time to look up some great architecture on the Web or in a history of architecture, and go visit “Fallingwater.” I think you’ll be absolutely amazed at what these men and women have done with all that ponderous “matter.”
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